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‘This isn’t crazy radicals saying shut the border’

Why Hone Harawira wants to move Christmas to March

Northland’s iwi-led checkpoint group, Tai Tokerau Border Control, is potentially about to face its biggest challenge yet: checking the tens of thousands of Aucklanders who want to head north are complying with the Covid-19 rules. For its founder Hone Harawira – a seasoned activist, former MP and now health protector – it’s all about doing the right thing. Denise

Piper talks to the man of the hour.

On December 15, Aucklanders will be let out of the supercity after a record 120-day Covid-19 border closure. Under the rules announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Aucklanders will be allowed to travel if they are either fully vaccinated or have returned a negative Covid-19 test within 72 hours.

Ardern said police would enforce these rules with the likes of spot checks.

That suggestion had Tai Tokerau Border Control chief executive Hone Harawira seeing red.

‘‘In the same way spot checks don’t stop drunken driving, spot checks won’t stop the spread of Covid either. The only way to do it is hard borders and full vaccination or turn around and go home.’’

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster has since confirmed visitors heading north can expect to be stopped in order to protect vulnerable communities – effectively throwing spot checks out the window.

‘‘With the support of iwi, police will set up and manage checkpoints to confirm that those travelling from Auckland meet the requirements,’’ Coster said.

‘‘Police will be very mindful of traffic flows, but the public can expect they may be stopped and spoken to by police.’’

Coster said there would be a low

tolerance for people attempting to travel north without meeting the requirements, and he urged people to follow the rules.

‘‘The community’s collective efforts are making a difference.’’

Harawira is grateful police have come to the party on checkpoints, but still wants more, saying only fully vaccinated visitors should be allowed to come north, as negative tests have been shown to be misleading by the first Delta cases in Northland.

And he is unconcerned if the checkpoints mean long traffic jams, or Aucklanders having to turn around and go home.

‘‘It’s not my decision to open the borders, that’s somebody else’s, and I think it’s the wrong decision. I think somebody should be sending a message that if you’re not fully vaccinated then you shouldn’t be coming north.’’

Tai Tokerau Border Control is supported by all 12 Tai Tokerau iwi chairs, alongside the chairs of the district health boards of Northland, Waitemata¯ , Auckland and Counties Manukau.

This group has been petitioning Ardern to keep Northland’s boundary closed until vaccination rates in Tai Tokerau reach 90 per cent.

‘‘This isn’t just crazy radicals saying ‘shut the border’,’’ Harawira said, clearly proud his stance has been vindicated by health authorities. ‘‘There’s clear evidence from a medical point of view that this is not going to be good for Tai Tokerau Ma¯ ori, in particular, Tai

Tokerau generally, to have the borders open.’’

But Tai Tokerau Border Control – and Harawira personally – have their detractors.

ACT leader David Seymour issued a media release this week with the subject line ‘Hone Harawira is not the law’.

‘‘Hone Harawira does not speak for New Zealanders and has no right to stop our freedom of movement,’’ Seymour said.

‘‘New Zealanders rejected Harawira when he tried to get back into Parliament. He has no mandate, he doesn’t speak for New Zealanders, he doesn’t even speak for Te Tai Tokerau, he should follow the law like everyone else.’’

Former NZ First MP and Northland resident Shane Jones is also against checkpoints, both philosophically and because of the traffic chaos likely to ensue.

‘‘There’s 10,000 cars leaving Auckland an hour. It’s physically impossible for the police and iwi volunteers to stop every car full of screaming kids and anxious families and check their vaccination pass. The traffic line will snake from Wellsford, down the Dome Valley, through Warkworth and back towards Auckland.’’

Come December 15, Jones wants no boundary nor spot checks out of Auckland at all, for the sake of business survival. He fears the checkpoints will put Aucklanders off Tai Tokerau, causing them to head elsewhere, like Coromandel or Bay of Plenty.

‘‘What profit is there in saving lives whilst destroying livelihoods? Especially when those vulnerable people are the ones who won’t get vaccinated.’’

Jones – who said he fully supported vaccination – believed Tai Tokerau would never get to 90 per cent vaccination because too many people had decided against the jab.

‘‘The problem is not the Aucklanders coming north, it’s the Northlanders who refuse to get vaccinated,’’ he said. ‘‘I personally do not believe the apothecary coming from some iwi that the north will deteriorate and be one big medical crisis – that’s absolute rubbish.’’

Harawira bats away the criticism with Covid-19 health statistics.

‘‘Ma¯ ori are just about six times more likely to be a Covid case than anyone else. I think it’s five times more likely to be hospitalised and four times more likely to die. Where is the rationale in opening the borders, to allow unvaccinated Aucklanders to come into our territory? Where is the sense in that?’’ he asked.

‘‘Tai Tokerau Ma¯ ori have some of the highest rates of kidney disease, lung disease, heart disease, liver disease, cancer, diabetes, emphysema – all of the magical pre-conditions for Covid, and yet they want to open the border? Where’s the sense in that?

‘‘Wha¯ nau are scared here about what’s likely to happen – they want to close camps, close beach accesses, close communities. Not because I say so, [but] because they see what’s likely to come from Auckland is just not going to be good for them.’’

Harawira said the health and wellbeing of Tai Tokerau residents was bigger than the needs of business, although he said he did empathise with their desire to get customers.

He suggested, with a laugh, that Christmas should be moved to March 2022, allowing more time for everyone to enjoy a celebration once vaccination goals were reached.

‘‘What’s more important – a holiday, or keeping everyone safe for another year?’’

Harawira’s history shows he is not one to shy away from controversy nor from saying what he thinks, in what he argues is standing up for ‘‘the right side’’ and speaking for those without a voice. The roots of his political career are deeply connected to activism, from fighting against Auckland University engineering students who mocked the haka, to taking part in the 506-day occupation of Bastion Point, to helping lead protests against the 1981 Springboks tour.

In 2004, he led a hı¯koi to Wellington in protest of foreshore and seabed legislation – which marched him all the way into Parliament with the newly formed Ma¯ ori Party.

But an inability to toe the party line saw him expelled from the Ma¯ ori Party in 2011, when he formed the Mana Movement and Mana Party.

Harawira said all of these things were ‘‘the right thing to do’’.

He admitted joining Kim Dotcom’s Internet Party in 2014, in a move that failed to win support from voters, was not the right thing, but for the most part, he felt he had been standing on the correct side.

‘‘If you stand for the Treaty, you’re on the right side. If you stand for tino rangatiratanga [sovereignty], you’re on the right side. If you stand for the rights of those who have no voice ... you’re on the right side. If you stand for border control, you’re on the right side nowadays, thankfully.

‘‘We weren’t always, eh. When we first started out, we didn’t ask iwi for their blessing, we didn’t ask anybody, because I know that history teaches you to just go do something and ask permission later.’’

Like in many other situations in Harawira’s life, the backing came later.

‘‘You don’t do it because you believe they’re going to come support you – you do it because it’s the right thing to do,’’ he said.

‘‘I’m comfortable with the things I’ve done and border control is part of that. It wasn’t a deep intellectual exercise backed with months of research, it was just a simple understanding that this [Covid-19] is coming. There’s probably only two ways to stop it – one is some medicine or vaccine – I don’t know anything about that stuff. The other way is to stop it getting into our territory, that’s something we can do with border control.’’

‘‘There’s 10,000 cars leaving Auckland an hour. It’s physically impossible for the police and iwi volunteers to stop every car full of screaming kids and anxious families and check their vaccination pass.’’ Shane Jones

Harawira said Tai Tokerau Border Control has been doing the right thing since it started in March 2020. ‘‘We’ve been on the right side ever since that day: to put up borders to ensure that the spread of Covid is limited in our territory.’’

While Harawira is often the face of the organisation – sometimes negatively, like when he copped slack for a 600km journey during lockdown – he is joined by two other volunteer leaders, Rueben Taipari and Nyree ‘Nyze’ Porter.

Behind them are about 40 volunteer helpers. ‘‘We are surrounded by dedicated people, who do it because their family are jeopardised healthwise, they do it because they’re scared for their communities, they see what Covid can do to wha¯ nau if you don’t manage it well.’’

Unlike Harawira’s earlier campaigns, this one involves supporting not just the voiceless, downtrodden minority, but all Tai Tokerau residents.

‘‘I don’t really care whether I’m representing the majority or not, I just know that it was the right thing to do to start border control,’’ he said.

‘‘I think the way that iwi have come around and the DHBs have come around, proved that our argument was right.’’

Harawira is proud of what the group has achieved in keeping Covid at bay in Northland, especially given it has run off the smell of an oily rag. He would like iwi to have more authority over their rohe [district], and be able to stand up without police – even though working with police is ‘‘always the first option’’.

The relationship between police and the iwi checkpoints has been tumultuous in its short history, including police closing checkpoints and threatening arrest.

In a very public event in January, police stopped a checkpoint run by Harawira south of Kawakawa – when Northland was at alert level 2 but Auckland was in an alert level 3 lockdown.

Harawira could not contain his anger at the time, saying police were doing nothing to keep the north safe.

But the relationship has since sweetened, with police and iwi often standing side-by-side in border checks. Harawira’s vision for December 15 is checkpoints at Waipu¯ and Maungaturoto, where there is enough room on State Highway 1 to have three lanes heading north.

‘‘We’re talking about a set location where we can check everyone – and why not? The health and wellbeing of people of the north is at stake here, this is not something to be played around with.’’

Tai Tokerau Border Control is evolving from its checkpoints, to helping with traffic management, supporting large tangi, and training in civil defence.

The volunteers are standing down, resting in anticipation of December 15, where they could face their biggest challenge yet.

Harawira would like enough volunteers to ensure any checkpoints run efficiently, reducing any traffic jams.

He has been pleasantly surprised with the support there’s been from Pa¯ keha¯ , including the Waipu¯ Highland Pipe Band, which is set to join a karakia before the checkpoints start on December 15.

To anyone who suggests the border control is racist, Harawira said all races have been turned around and stopped from heading north.

‘‘I would love to have them on the checkpoints working with us. The positive Pa¯ keha¯ response, and we get it all the time, is ‘thank you, thank you because we know it protects our community as well’.’’

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the Government would not keep Tai Tokerau closed, with its ‘‘red’’ Covid-19 Protection Framework status signifying there was a vulnerable population.

Hipkins urged Northlanders scared about Covid-19 spreading to combat vaccine misinformation, saying Tai Tokerau had the highest concentration of misinformation in the country.

‘‘All those in Northland who are expressing concern or nervousness or anxiety – the best thing that they can do is go out and find people who haven’t been vaccinated, and talk to them about the importance of vaccinations,’’ Hipkins said.

‘‘It is their choice whether or not to be vaccinated but, unfortunately, many of those people are making the decision not to be vaccinated based on misinformation.’’

Encouraging vaccinations is talk that Harawira is clearly walking.

On the day the Sunday Star-Times visits the Far North to interview him, there is a traffic jam outside the Mana Movement office in the normally flowing Kaita¯ ia streets. The reason? Hundreds of people are lining up to get grocery vouchers, as a bonus for getting vaccinated.

Harawira said the vouchers will help people get kai for Christmas – for most of them it will be the only thing on top of their benefits that they get between now and Christmas Day.

He rejects the idea by some anti-vaxxers that the vouchers are a bribe.

‘‘I’m not telling anyone that they have to come; but those that do come, they make their own choices... If people choose to get vaccinated, and if they get a bonus for it, good on them.’’

Harawira wished the funding for the vouchers, provided through Te Puni Ko¯ kiri to encourage Ma¯ ori vaccinations, could have come sooner.

‘‘We would’ve loved to have been able to do that at the start. We’re crashing everything now because Jacinda wants to throw the borders open, so we’ve got to just try to get as many people through the vaccination train as we can.’’

As protests against Covid-19 vaccinations and vaccine mandates ramp up, Harawira now finds himself in slightly unfamiliar territory: standing alongside police against protesters.

In October, he lashed out at Sovereign Hı¯koi of Truth (SHOT) protesters, who attempted to travel from around the country to attend He Whakaputanga Declaration of Independence celebrations at Waitangi. Harawira issued a statement saying ‘‘white anti-vaxxers go home’’ and said protesters were abusing tikanga and the tino rangatiratanga flag he fought to fly.

‘‘When you see Confederate flags flying alongside our 1835 flag of independence [United Tribes flag], that’s something sick – that’s the flag of slavery in the US. When you see the Trump flag flying alongside the tino rangatiratanga flag, you know somebody’s f ..... things up. Never, ever was tino rangatiratanga to be associated with the kind of racist attitude that Donald Trump brings to his campaign.’’

Many of the anti-vaxxers are acting with a viciousness that has surprised the seasoned activist. ‘‘Any Ma¯ ori who thinks that Whakaputanga, the treaty, tino rangatiratanga, mana motuhake [authority] is going to be enhanced by Trump-loving Nazis, is definitely singing up the wrong tree ... Be wary of those idiots.’’

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2021-12-05T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-12-05T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281801402248451

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